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Gono warns Mugabe

Zim Independent

Dumisani MuleyaCENTRAL bank
governor Gideon Gono has warned President Robert Mugabe the prevailing state
of collapse in key parastatals is compounding the persistent economic
crisis.

This is despite the trillions doled out to failing state
companies over the past two years.

Gono, battling with a
crumbling economy, said in a report to Mugabe the situation in parastatals
and local authorities was appalling and sabotaging prospects of economic
recovery. He said this was largely because the enterprises' "tentacles are
far-reaching and have an economy-wide impact".

Government, which has
strong interventionist policies, holds sway across a vast swathe of the
economy through the parastatals. Local authorities also play a major role in
the economy.

In the report dated November 11 2005 and titled
Operational Challenges of Parastatals, Gono said state companies such as the
National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), Air Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Electricity
Supply Authority (Zesa), Zimbabwe Iron & Steel Company (Zisco), Rural
Electrification Agency, District Development Fund (DDF), Civil Aviation
Authority of Zimbabwe (Caaz), Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH), Zimbabwe
United Passenger Company (Zupco), Cold Storage Company (CSC) and Hwange
Colliery were in a precarious state.

He said other parastatals,
the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa), Industrial Development
Corporation (IDC), Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC), and Agricultural &
Rural Development Authority (Arda) were in almost the same
predicament.

Gono said despite pouring in trillions to revive the
parastatals under the Productive Sector Facility and the Parastatal
Re-orientation Programme which started in February last year, the situation
remains dire.

On the NRZ,
Gono said the company faces "major capacity constraints that have
compromised the national transport system". He said the NRZ had received
$125,2 billion by November last year but remained in crisis.

"The
challenges at the parastatal include deterioration in the rail
infrastructure characterised by in excess of 140 speed restrictions,
vandalised communication equipment and dilapidated yard facilities," he
said.

"Out of a total of 8 098 wagons only 3 467 are working
vis-a-vis a market requirement of 8 629. Out of a total of 179 locomotives
only 66 are working and of these 15 are underpowered. Current capacity
utilisation is therefore 33%." The NRZ has a debt of US$13,8
million.

Gono said Air Zimbabwe was still locked in crisis despite
getting $580,7 billion covering foreign currency liabilities, working
capital, and funds to service its overdraft facilities. He said the national
airline was dogged by problems emanating from servicing unprofitable routes,
unsustainable overheads, bad management and huge debts. Air Zimbabwe has a
US$14 million debt and $100 billion owing.

Zesa got $235,7
billion but was bedevilled by a poor tariff structure, lack of investment
and rehabilitation of electricity generation capacity, a high wage bill,
unsustainable operational losses ($86 billion for October 2005 and a
projected $8 trillion by last December), and corporate structural problems.
The company has a foreign debt of US$330 million.

More than $666,2
billion was poured into Zisco but the company still needs a major balance
sheet restructuring and working capital, Gono said.

It is operating
at 45% capacity due to inadequate investment and maintenance. Blast furnace
No 3 is down, while No 4 is operating at well below capacity. The NRZ's
failure to deliver coal and foreign currency shortages have worsened the
situation. Zisco has a debt overhang of US$126 million.

Gono said
the DDF, which received $21,4 billion, was reeling from shortages of fuel
and spares. Caaz has a poor corporate culture and management. It got $73,4
billion. The ZBH, given $16, 6 billion, was dogged by low advertising, poor
programming, antiquated equipment and foreign currency
shortages.

CIO bid to rescue Mutasa flops

Clemence
ManyukweCENTRAL Intelligence Organisation (CIO) officers on Monday tried to
block nearly 20 state witnesses from testifying at Rusape Magistrates' Court
in a political violence case linked to National Security minister Didymus
Mutasa.

The trial of Zanu PF's Makoni North district chairman Albert
Nyakuedzwa, who the state accuses together with Mutasa of leading a faction
of ruling party supporters against another group that included James Kaunye,
nearly collapsed after the witnesses were coerced by the CIO to withdraw
their testimonies.

A lawyer dealing with the case, Tendai Amon
Toto, confirmed this week that an order had been issued against the CIO not
to interfere with state witnesses.

Mutasa has however not been
indicted in the case and Toto has raised concerns over selective
prosecution.

Toto of Mutare law firm TA Toto & Consultants who is
representing one of the accused, Everisto Bhosha, Zanu PF's deputy secretary
for legal affairs in Makoni district, on Wednesday confirmed that an order
had been made against the CIO agents.

Sources said the AG's
office had to dispatch the Director of Public Prosecutions, Loice
Matanda-Moyo, to assure the state witnesses of their safety and to ensure
that the trial went ahead as scheduled.

The state prosecutor, Tembo,
and Matanda-Moyo rejected the withdrawal of the affidavits on the grounds
that the witnesses said they had been coerced, Toto said.

"It was
mentioned by the state that some CIO officials had sent their subordinates
to force witnesses to withdraw the matter," he said.

Kaunye, a war
veteran and retired army major who had expressed willingness to challenge
the minister in Zanu PF primaries for Makoni North, was left unconscious
after the attack.

Nyakuedzwa is a Grain Marketing Board regional
manager for Manicaland.

He was part of Mutasa and Agriculture minister
Joseph Made's campaign teams in the 2005 ruling party primary elections and
was denied bail by the High Court in August last year on a murder charge
against a war veteran and Zanu PF official, Tina Wilson Mukono, who was
declared a provincial hero.

The state is said to have applied for an
order barring CIO Manicaland provincial officer and district officer
identified only as Chibaya and Masiya respectively to stop interfering with
the witnesses, which was granted.

Contacted for comment, Matanda-Moyo
who is said to have sat in court throughout the day, confirmed on Tuesday
that she was called to Rusape but declined to comment on the
matter.

"Yes I was called to Rusape, but I cannot comment on a matter
which is before the courts. The trial will however continue on January 26,"
she said.

Aston Musunga of Harare law firm Musunga & Associates who
is representing Nyakuedzwa, Zanu PF's Makoni North district chairman Pheneas
Koro, the ruling party's secretary for transport in the same district
Happiness Mafuratidze, Rusape Urban youth chairman Tax Jimo, and 27 others
who are ruling party youths residing around Makoni district, refused to
comment on the matter.

Toto added that he was of the view that
before an order was made against state agents, they had to be subpoenaed
first and a ruling made after hearing their side of their story because the
allegations against them "were damning".

Toto added that during
the hearing he had made an application for stay of proceedings until Mutasa
was indicted but it was dismissed.

"It is mentioned everywhere in the
state outline that Mutasa influenced them," the lawyer said. "To me it is
selective prosecution to have youngsters go through prosecution and this
torture without having the significant perpetrator, Mutasa, being arrested.
Chiyangwa, Kuruneri were arrested, what about Mutasa?" he
asked.

According to the state outline the accused persons "led by
Nyakuedzwa and Mutasa" went on a reign of terror after having held a meeting
at Mutasa's Rusape's home on August 21 2004 for purposes of mapping out
strategies for the minister to retain the constituency in the parliamentary
election.

Daniel Shumba launches own party

Zim Independent

Dumisani
MuleyaFORMER Zanu PF provincial chairman Daniel Shumba has formed his own
opposition political party, the United People's Party (UPP), after he was
initially linked to the emerging United People's Movement
(UPM).

Shumba, the interim president of UPP, said this week that his
party would officially be launched next month.

He said its
interim executive would be announced on February 15. The party symbol is
raised crossed palms.

"We have now formed the UPP and we expect to
officially launch it next month when the full interim executive will be
announced," Shumba said.

"We have printed at least two million membership
cards and we are getting an overwhelming response from the people on the
ground."

Although Shumba did not reveal members of the UPP interim
executive, he said they include prominent opposition and civil society
activists. He also said his party was pulling out all the stops to recruit
people with solid political credentials to occupy leadership positions and
build strong party structures.

Shumba, a former senior Zanu PF
central committee member and businessman, formally resigned from the ruling
party this week after he was last year suspended for five years over a power
struggle that rocked Zanu PF in the run-up to the party's 2004
congress.

He was suspended together with five other provincial
chairmen following the episode which claimed a number of high-profile
political casualties, including former Information minister Jonathan Moyo,
who were accused of backing Emmerson Mnangagwa's bid for
power.

Mnangagwa and his faction - sometimes referred to as the
Tsholotsho camp - have been linked to the UPM, whose main movers at the
moment are Moyo and ex-Zanu PF central committee member and former MP for
Zvishavane, Pearson Mbalekwa, who resigned from the party last year over
Operation Murambatsvina.

Shumba was expected to be a member of
the UPM but decided to form his own party.

He said in an
interview the UPP had already drafted a party constitution, printed
membership cards, set up structures nationwide, and was ready for the
launch. The party also has a position paper outlining its policies and the
current state of the nation.

The document deals with constitutional
and electoral law and other democratic reforms which the party says are
desperately needed. It also addresses human rights issues such as the
Gukurahundi massacres and Operation Murambatsvina, land redistribution,
macro-economics, food security, health, education and foreign policy. It
says the UPP believes in a free market economy.

"UPP pronounces
the people's will and a mandate for saving the nation from further demise.
Recent episodes have subjected the generality of Zimbabweans to poverty,
hopelessness and victims of misrule, greed, brutality, terror, corruption
and dictatorship," the document says.

"Zanu PF is using fear and
terror to subdue and disenfranchise the whole country, thus guaranteeing its
grip on power. It is now an offence to speak the truth, criticise and have a
different opinion."

Shumba, a former senior army officer, said
Zimbabwe was ruled by a despotic regime which has looted the economy
dry.

He said Zanu PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change were failed political parties despite their past commendable
contributions.

"The current Zanu PF dictatorship guarantees certain
individuals the right to dominate, loot and intimidate the whole country.
Laws of the country are applied selectively.property and businesses are
expropriated, passports withdrawn, and innocent people imprisoned and
tortured," Shumba said.

MDC parallel congresses to chew $30b

Zim Independent

Loughty
DubeTHE crisis-ridden opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)'s
feuding camps will spend close to $30 billion to hold parallel congresses
that are due early this year just as it emerges that donors have deserted
the party en masse.

Sources this week said traditional donors of the
MDC who include prominent local businessmen, based locally and in South
Africa, and industrialists, have withdrawn their financial support as they
are uncertain of the end of the power wrangles in the seven-year-old
opposition party.

The source of funding for congresses for each of
the two factions has taken centre-stage with both claiming total control of
the party's central funds.

Currently there is a grey area on who
controls the party's financial accounts with the Morgan Tsvangirai faction
arguing that national treasurer, Fletcher Dulini Ncube was fired for
incompetence by the national council while Gibson Sibanda's group alleges
that Ncube, as the legitimate money-man, is still in charge of the party
purse.

"Ncube was dismissed by the national council for absenting
himself from duty and the national council mandated the party president, the
national chairman, youth and women's assembly chairperson to be signatories
and as a result we are in charge of party finances," said Nelson Chamisa for
Tsvangirai's camp.

Spokesman for Sibanda's camp, Gift
Chimanikire, dismissed Chamisa's claims and said Ncube could only be
dismissed by the MDC national congress.

However, it emerged this week
that the two factions were scouting for over $30 billion needed to hold the
separate congresses.

Figures provided by both factions indicate that
a total of 18 000 delegates from the two camps will attend the national
congresses.

The Tsvangirai faction will hold its congress in Harare
on March 17-19 while Sibanda's faction will hold its congress on February 25
at a yet to be known venue.

Chamisa told the Zimbabwe Independent
this week that 13 000 delegates from the country's 12 provinces will attend
the Harare congress while Chimanikire said a total of 6 000 delegates will
attend their congress.

"There is only one MDC congress and that is in
Harare and 13 000 people drawn from the country's 12 provinces will attend,"
Chamisa said.

Chimanikire however said his faction was yet to decide
on the venue of the congress.

"We are still deciding on the venue
and once that is settled everything will shape up. We have about 6 000 party
delegates who will attend the party's congress where we will elect a new
party president to replace Tsvangirai next month," Chimanikire
said.

A source told the Independent this week Sibanda's faction would
need $10 billion to cater for the 6 000 delegates expected to attend while
Tsvangirai's camp will need double that amount.

"The two
congresses are likely to gobble over $30 billion and with the rate at which
prices are skyrocketing, the figure could be double by next month," a source
privy to operations of both groups said.

Law Society challenges Crimminal Procedure
Act

Zim Independent

Clemence ManyukweTHE Law Society of Zimbabwe is challenging the
constitutionality of a section of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act
that allows the state to direct the courts to detain suspects for up to 21
days without bail.

The lawyers argue that empowering the Attorney-General
or his representative to issue certificates denying suspects bail amounts to
a usurpation of the powers of the judiciary.

Government claims
this is necessary in the fight against economic crimes such as corruption,
money-laundering and illegal dealing in foreign currency or
gold.

However, lawyers say this allows the executive to usurp
judicial authority.

Before the non-bailable offences legislation came
into force, police could detain suspects for up to 48 hours only. The
Criminal Evidence and Procedure Act made permanent a temporary presidential
decree issued in February 2004 allowing the police to detain suspects for 28
days. The detention period was later reduced to 21 days as a concession
after Zanu PF MPs rebelled against the measure during a parliamentary debate
before the Bill was passed in July 2004.

In the matter in which
the Law Society is the applicant and the AG and Justice minister Patrick
Chinamasa are the respondents, the lawyers' association president Joseph
James said the Act had rendered legal practitioners ineffective in defending
human rights.

He described the lengthy detention period as "a
hallmark of oppression".

"The provisions disguise substitution of a
bureaucrat's decision, a police officer or the Attorney-General's for that
of a judicial officer and effectively merges, in relation to the specified
offences, the adjudicatory role and the executive role by allowing the
executive to usurp judicial authority," James said.

"It is
offensive to community sense of justice, morality and fundamental human
rights to enact a law which provides for mandatory detention prior to trial.
Detention prior to trial is a hallmark of oppression."

He added that
the Act had resulted in serious cases of failure of due administration of
justice as accused persons had been forced to flee the country for fear of
detention without trial.

"So serious has this development been that a
number of them have opted to abandon substantial assets including real
estates and commercial enterprises such as banks and farming enterprises,"
James said.

"It can never be necessary in a democratic society to
create an environment where members of the public lose confidence in the
ability of the administration of justice to protect them from injustice,
arbitrary arrests and deprivation of property. The number of exiles has
tended in history to have a direct proportion to levels of
oppression."

James said section 32, sub-sections 3a, 3ab, 3c, 3d and
section 34, sub-sections 4, 5 and 6 were in contravention of international
human rights instruments such as the African Charter for Human and Peoples'
Rights which Zimbabwe is signatory to.

Zinwa fails residents

Zim Independent

Itai MushekweGOVERNMENT has
all but failed to assure Harare residents of adequate water supplies through
the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa).

Minister of State for
Water Resources and Infrastructural Development, Munacho Mutezo, this week
highlighted a plethora of ills bedevilling Zinwa to explain why the utility
was failing to deliver sufficient bulk water to
Harare.

Addressing journalists this week, Mutezo singled out
obsolete infrastructure and financial constraints as some of Zinwa's major
challenges.

Mutezo pleaded for residents' patience as his ministry is
working on a sheaf of strategies to provide potable water.

"We're
asking consumers to bear with us as we continue with our water demand
management initiative and making water available," he
said.

Mutezo disclosed: "We don't have sufficient storage capacity
and as such we're under demand pressure. We therefore need to work on the
Kunzvi dam project to reduce pressure."

Ever since Zinwa took
over bulk water supplies for Metropolitan Harare province in May last year
from the city council, residents have been subjected to daily water cuts
with some high density suburbs going for months without
supplies.

Mabvuku residents were badly hit at the peak of the water
shortages last year with residents having to settle for unprotected water
sources thus exposing themselves to health risks.

Burst pipes
have become the order of the day, resulting in between 40-60% of treated
water being lost through leakages.

The worrisome water crisis has
come at a time when the city is battling with a cholera outbreak that has
claimed 14 lives so far in the city.

The World Health Organisation
has raised concerns about the quality of Harare's water.

Combined
Harare Residents Association chairman Mike Davies said Harare's water woes
were a result of a governance crisis.

"The Makwavarara commission is
illegal," he said.

He said until a democratically-elected council
with the people's mandate was put in place there would be no solution to
Harare's water problems.

"There can never be a resolution of our
crisis without a solution to the national problem. The government sees
Harare as its possession irrespective of the views and wishes of the
residents."

Davies said since Harare was the second largest public
enterprise after central government and receives massive revenue from
residents, Zanu PF was using it to distribute contracts among its
functionaries resulting in lack of transparency and
accountability.

Harare's water problems have persisted over the years
due to successive inept appointees at Town House who have failed to maintain
and expand existing water facilities.

The construction of Kunzvi
dam, first mooted two decades ago, is seen as a lasting solution to the dire
water shortages bedevilling Harare. Satellite towns such as Chitungwiza,
Norton and Ruwa would also benefit from the Kunzvi project.

Mandaza wants jail for defiant directors

ZIMBABWE
Mirror Newspapers group CEO and editor-in-chief, Ibbo Mandaza, has filed yet
another court application asking the High Court to imprison the publishing
house's directors for allegedly defying judicial orders.

Mandaza,
battling to retain control of the group's titles - the Daily Mirror and
Sunday Mirror - taken over by the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO),
said in a court application filed on January 12 that four Mirror directors
must be jailed for defying a recent court order which nullified his
suspension and allowed him to resume duties.

In his affidavit,
Mandaza said Mirror directors - Kadzura, Marangwanda, Makuwane and Kanengoni
- defied Justice Bharat Patel's order and that the court should send them to
jail. He said failure to do so would set a bad precedent and undermine the
courts.

"In this application, I humbly seek an order declaring all
respondents to be in contempt of court," Mandaza said. "In execution of that
order, I further seek that the 1st to 4th respondents be committed to prison
until such a time that they comply with the order of this honourable
court."

He said Zistanbal and Unique must be fined for the same
alleged offence.

Mandaza said although he had since returned to work, he
was still unable to resume duties because of systematic defiance of the
court order by the Mirror officials.

"I have since returned to
work and staff has been unwilling to co-operate with me. In secret, members
of staff have confided in me that they fear victimisation by members of the
Central Intelligence Organisation who mill around the workplace," he
said.

"The respect, dignity and decorum of this honourable court is
thus under a clear, present, persisting and deliberate attack (by the
respondents). The motivation for me as a litigant to act to correct this
brazen, wanton, naked and dare-me-if-you-can attitude on the part of the
respondents immediately arises."

Mandaza said such a blatant
assault on the judiciary and rule of law must not be tolerated by the
courts.

"I submit this honourable court is also duty-bound to ensure
compliance with its orders. By extrapolation, where orders are violated, it
behoves it, I submit, to adopt a zero-tolerance attitude and put its foot
down by urgently, and with fitting celerity, reassert its authority," he
said.

The Mirror boss said his application was urgent and should be
treated as such. "To treat such cases as non-urgent is to unconsciously play
into the hands of parties (such as the respondents) who are at the wrong end
of the law," Mandaza said.

"Phrased differently, it is to
unconsciously enjoy being a pawn in their game of wickedness where only the
advocates of chaos and the law of the jungle survive."

Mandaza
said the unfolding saga had pushed him towards financial ruin as he had not
been paid $3,5 billion owing and not reimbursed $769 million of his own
money he used for company business.

He said two months ago, he was
forced to sell personal assets to pay his creditors. It was now clear,
Mandaza said, the state security agents wanted to reap where they did not
sow. - Staff Writer.

Another ploy to ensure patronage, says Gasela

Zim Independent

Ray
MatikinyeTHE planned takeover of fertiliser companies and the delay in
providing inputs to farmers is a long-term ploy to maximise the use of food
as a political tool by the ruling party to maintain its grip on the
population and ultimately power, opposition MDC agriculture spokesman Renson
Gasela has said.

Gasela charged that government would prefer the
agricultural sector to remain in a state of decline so that it can maintain
a stranglehold on the rural electorate from which it draws the bulk of its
support.

In a paper titled Politics of Food released yesterday,
Gasela, formerly the Grain Marketing Board CEO, says the ruling Zanu PF
party has deliberately delayed the distribution of vital inputs in the midst
of a promising season to prolong dependency by rural peasants on food
handouts, often distributed in a partisan manner.

"The people in
the rural areas, starved of food and using councillors and village heads,
will comply with directives and force applied by Zanu PF and the Zanu
government knows that it can never win a free and fair election," Gasela
says.

He said the government found a formula for controlling people
in the rural areas through the system of ward and village development
committees which work in tandem with a Zanu PF employee who is paid by
government through the Ministry of Youth.

"This official works
with village heads and ward councilors," he said. "With perennial induced
food shortages, this structure ensures compliance of rural people. The
patronage system has been perfected."

Gasela cites the unavailability
of vital inputs such as seed and fertiliser as part of a grand plan by Zanu
PF to keep the electorate dependent.

"It is deliberate policy to keep
Zimbabwe in a semi-permanent food deficit situation," he says.

In
his closing remarks at the Zanu PF annual conference in Esigodini last
month, President Mugabe admitted there were serious bottlenecks in the
system of procuring and supplying inputs to people now on the
land.

"Seasons are not predictable in their occurrence," he said. "We
know every year there is going to be an agricultural season. Yet year in,
year out, we are caught flat-footed and unprepared. The farmer prepares for
the season diligently, only to be failed by the various arms of government,
which must move in with inputs.

"There are serious shortcomings
in government planning and steps will have to be taken to correct that,"
Mugabe said. "Does it make sense that we do not have enough fertiliser at
this point in the season? We have been talking about shortages since last
year. Cabinet will have to deal with this matter in two days'
time."

But Gasela disputes this saying no one can really believe that
President Mugabe does not know why there is no fertiliser.

"Can
we really believe that he has over the past five years actually failed to
ensure that his ministers perform?" Gasela asked.

Chapfika in farm dispute

Zim Independent

Augustine
MukaroCONTROVERSY surrounding the expropriation of Gletwyn Farm has sucked
in Finance deputy minister David Chapfika's Divine Homes - the company that
is developing the property into residential stands although the acquisition
is not yet finalised.

New occupants include senior police
officers.

Farm owner Alexander Ross said the property was valued at
US$10 million ($900 billion).

The Zimbabwe Independent
understands that Ross is contemplating a legal suit against the invaders to
get compensation for improvements and other valuables on the property before
he will surrender the title deeds.

Government on the other hand has
valued the improvements at $75 billion (US$830 000).

The standoff
means development on the property should stop but Divine Homes has proceeded
to subdivide the disputed land into residential stands.

Police Heights
Housing Cooperative members, who occupied the farm on December 13, have
evicted former farm workers and other tenants from
Gletwyn.

Divine Homes chief executive Nhamo Tutisani confirmed
that his company was allocated land by government to develop residential
stands.

"We confirm that we are developers of 587 low-density stands
on Stand 1 of Gletwyn which is a government acquired farm," Tutisani
said.

"We are developing the stands on behalf of the government of
Zimbabwe. The stands will be sold to anyone who can afford and meet the
purchase price and other conditions stipulated in the agreement of sale to
be entered into between the consenting parties."

Tutisani said
Gletwyn owners, the Ross family's demand for compensation could best be
addressed by government which acquired the farm.

"The issue of
acquisition of the farm can only be competently addressed by the government,
which is empowered by the constitution and other relevant legislation of the
country to acquire identified land for various uses, including urban
expansion which entails the development of housing and ancillary services,"
he said.

Tutisani said construction work was in progress. "We are
happy to report that bush clearing is complete and we are currently
stockpiling gravel awaiting the rains to subside so that we can move the
rest of the machinery on site to work on the remaining stages of roads and
water reticulation construction," he said.

Police moved onto
Gletwyn Farm on December 13, displacing more than 200 people renting houses
or working on the farm.

The farm is being subdivided into 600 stands
ranging from 1 900 to 2 000 square-metres for high-ranking police
officers.

'Tsvangirai boycotted senate after secret meeting with
General Mujuru'

Zim Independent

THE Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) faction led by
party deputy leader Gibson Sibanda yesterday claimed Morgan Tsvangirai, now
in charge of a rival faction, decided to boycott the senate election after a
meeting with former army commander retired General Solomon
Mujuru.

MDC spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi, who now speaks for Sibanda's
camp, said Tsvangirai changed his stance on the election after a meeting
with Mujuru in South Africa in September. He said prior to the secret
meeting - which has been reported in the press - Tsvangirai wanted the MDC
to fight the poll.

"Before the 12 October 2005 national council
meeting, it had generally been agreed by all senior MDC officials, including
Morgan Tsvangirai that the party would participate in the senatorial
election," Nyathi said.

"At the time Tsvangirai intended to use the
senate election as an opportunity to accommodate senior party officials such
as Isaac Matongo, Lucia Matibenga and Sekai Holland who had failed to make
it to parliament by finding them safe seats in which they could stand as
senatorial candidates."

Nyathi, who lost his Gwanda seat in last year's
general election, said Tsvangirai also reasoned at the time the move would
"help remove the financial burden on the party in terms of
salaries".

"Tsvangirai changed his stance on the issue of
participation in the senate election after a secret meeting in South Africa
with former Zimbabwean army commander General Solomon Mujuru," he
said.

"Tsvangirai had travelled to South Africa on the pretext that
he was going to congratulate his daughter-in-law who had just had a new
baby. The main purpose of his visit though was to meet up with
Mujuru."

Nyathi said rumours of the meeting filtered back to Harare
and, on his return, Tsvangirai was confronted by senior colleagues over the
issue. "He admitted having held a secret meeting with Mujuru in South Africa
but only said tichakutaurirai kuti zvichafambiswa sei. (I will tell you how
it will go).' To this day Tsvangirai has not disclosed full details of his
secret meeting with Mujuru."

However, Tsvangirai's spokesman
William Bango denied the meeting ever took place. "Tsvangirai has never met
with Mujuru. He has never met either General Mujuru or Amai (Joice) Mujuru
or any of their family members in his life," Bango said.

"The
closest he has come to Mujuru is seeing him on television. These claims have
appeared in other newspapers but I can tell you Tsvangirai did not meet
Mujuru."

But Nyathi insisted Tsvangirai had met Mujuru and that
he actually confirmed it after being confronted about it. He said the
purpose of the meeting was to withdraw the MDC from the election and enter
into power-sharing with Zanu PF.

Tsvangirai and Sibanda's
factions have been engaged in a power struggle triggered by differences over
participating in the senate election. Tsvangirai boycotted the poll saying
the conditions were not conducive for a free and fair election, but Sibanda
led his faction into it and lost.

However, Tsvangirai last week
changed his mind and entered council elections, leaving his supporters
confused about his real plans. The MDC lost the council polls at the
weekend. - Staff Writer.

Independent presses for senior judge to hear
case

Zim Independent

LAWYERS representing the Zimbabwe Independent have written to the
Registrar of the Supreme Court asking Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku to
release Supreme Court judge Wilson Sandura to hear a civil suit filed
against the paper by Judge President Paddington Garwe.

Garwe last
year filed a civil lawsuit against the Independent after the publication of
a story which claimed the judge had been blocked from passing judgement in
the treason trial of opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

The
paper claimed that assessors Major Misheck Nyandoro and Joseph Dangarembizi
had prevented the passing of judgement until they had seen recorded
transcripts of the proceedings.

Justice Garwe subsequently acquitted
Tsvangirai of treason last year.

Independent editor Vincent Kahiya,
reporter Augustine Mukaro and Zimind Publishers chief executive Raphael
Khumalo were last year charged with criminal defamation following the
publication of the story.

Since the filing of the suit, there has
been hectic out-of-court action as the legal team representing the
Independent and Garwe's counsel sought a judge to hear the case.
Chihambakwe, Mutizwa & Partners, representing Garwe, said any judge
could hear the case while the Independent lawyers argued that would create
structural problems.

Advocate Erik Morris, instructed by Linda Cook
of Atherstone & Cook for the Independent, argued in pre-conference trial
meetings and in the letter to Chidyausiku that judges of the High Court
could not hear a case involving the Judge President.

"As you will
see, the difficulty arises with regards to what judge could sit on the civil
suit instituted by the Judge President," said Morris in the letter. "All the
puisne judges fall under his control and it would put them in a most
embarrassing position to sit in judgement over their superior."

In
the letter Morris also pointed out the problems of Chidyausiku hearing the
civil suit.

"Mr Chihambakwe who represents Justice Garwe indicates
that the Honourable Chief Justice could sit, but this would create an
identical situation if the matter were to be appealed," said Morris. "The
only judge acceptable to defendants is a retired judge of the Honourable
High Court or Supreme Court, or a judge from a similar jurisdiction," said
Morris.

Morris said the defendants would however voice no objection
to Justice Sandura hearing the case "as he has never been under the control
of the plaintiff (Garwe) in this matter and has equal status with the
Honourable Supreme Court judges (save the Chief Justice
himself)".

He said Garwe had indicated that he had no difficulty with
any judge presiding over the hearing.

"Would you kindly enquire
of his Lordship whether he would be prepared to release Sandura, or whether
we should widen the list to encompass such retired judges as we have been
able to locate, and in the cases contact," Morris said. - Staff
Writer.

Zim dollar stays on roller coaster

Paul
NyakazeyaTHE Zimbabwe dollar continued to trade weaker, falling to new lows
against the United States dollar on the interbank market.

The
weakening of the dollar has been a result of the continued shortages of
foreign currency which has dogged the country since 2000.

The
local currency opened the year trading at $82 300 against the United States
dollar, falling by over 10% during the first three weeks of the
year.

"We expect the local currency to suffer further losses during
the course of the year, more so if fears of food shortages become a
reality," a market dealer said this week.

Lack of support from
the Bretton Woods institutions following a fallout with the authorities over
debt repayments, and skewed economic policies have combining to create
pressure on the local unit, dealers said.

The Zimbabwe dollar traded
at $96 407,60 to the US dollar on the interbank on
Thursday.

There was a 10% difference between the official exchange
rate on the interbank and the rate on the parallel market, with the parallel
market rate higher for the US dollar.

The weakening local
currency has forced prices of both imported and local goods up, further
creating inflationary pressure on the economy.

Sharp drops in
international aid, tourism receipts and exports have all put pressure on
Zimbabwe's currency.

Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono has said
stabilising inflation is key to efforts to make the local currency
competitive against major currencies to revive an economy in recession for
the past six years.

Gono, who previously devalued the dollar in July
last year, said the exchange rate will be reviewed in line with inflation.
The continuous rise of inflation will however put further pressure on the
exchange rate this year unless the trend changes.

General Mujuru intervents in Trust packages
payout

Zim Independent

Shakeman MugariTHE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), which delayed
packages for Trust Bank retrenchees for eight months, was late last year
allegedly forced to reverse its position after the intervention of General
Solomon Mujuru, businessdigest can reveal.

It is understood that the
RBZ has since approved the packages which were immediately paid out by Trust
Bank administrator, Brian Njikizana of KPMG.

Sources said the 51
workers approached Mujuru sometime in October after the payment of their
packages had been delayed for eight months. Their retrenchment packages had
been approved by the Ministry of Public, Service, Labour and Social Welfare,
on May 25, 2005.

The packages were only released after Mujuru
contacted the RBZ which had delayed approving the payouts for the workers
who were retrenched after Trust Bank was hit by a financial crisis. The
workers sought Mujuru's intervention after persistent efforts to get money
from the administrator failed.

Njikizana had refused to release
the monies arguing that the payment had to be approved by the central bank.
In the meantime the RBZ was also playing delaying tactics by passing the
buck back to the curator.

Workers confirmed to businessdigest that
their money was eventually released after several meetings with Mujuru.
Their first meeting with general Mujuru was held in October at his farm in
Beatrice.

The workers told Mujuru that their own investigation had
established that they were being denied their packages because they were
perceived to be William Nyemba's people. They also told him that they had
won their case at the Labour Court and the High Court.

According
to a worker who was part of the delegation to Beatrice, Mujuru expressed
surprise that they had not received their monies.

Mujuru asked for
their documentation and promised to talk to RBZ governor Gideon Gono
directly.

"We met Mujuru to plead with him to help us in our effort
and his intervention saved the day," said a worker who attended one of the
meetings with Mujuru.

"We met him at his farm in Beatrice on two
occasions trying to seek his help with our case because the RBZ had proven
unhelpful," said the worker.

In subsequent meetings, Mujuru told the
workers that he had had discussions with Gono who had agreed to ensure that
the packages were released.

"He told us that he had held discussions
with Gono and that he had also written a letter to him concerning our
issue," said a worker who was part of the delegation. The workers were paid
two weeks after the Mujuru's intervention.businessdigest reliably
understands that the workers' packages were calculated at the rate of their
old salaries despite eight months' delays.

The workers got
severance pay of four months' salary plus one month's pay as a stabilisation
package.

They were also paid four months' pay for every year served
and their gratuities. The workers were also asked to repay their loans in
six months.

Scotch carts getting cheaper!

By Admire
MavolwaneTHE inflation rate has since its upgrading to "enemy of the state"
status in December 2003 attracted so much attention that even politicians
have started talking about it.

It has also become a monthly routine
for the highest officials at the Central Statistical Office (CSO) to
announce the figures through a press briefing.

Official
explanations for the increases in the CPI components are availed. We laud
this development because in the past some of the explanations for the
increases or very occasionally, decreases, then found in certain newspapers,
were rather misleading.

We all know what has happened in terms of the
year-on-year and the month-on-month rate for December 2005. However, this
week we look at those components of the CPI basket that recorded the highest
increases in the last month of our silver jubilee year.

Hair
dressing saloons, in December alone hiked their prices by 16,2% from
November and the new prices reflect a hefty 2 369,2% on the previous
December. These places used to be hives of activity especially during the
weekends and the streets used to be littered with empty boxes of Revlon and
Dark & Lovely.

These days one can count him/herself lucky if
they stumble upon these soon to be collectors' items. Hairdressing saloons
were one of the fastest growing industries two years ago but the hard times
seem to have caught up with them as well.

Market forces which we
are all clamouring for appear to have negatively (or positively depending on
which side of the fence one is sitting) affected the price of bicycles which
rose by 2 240,5% from December 2004 to December 2005. No doubt the fuel
shortages and price increases which were accompanied by concomitant
increases in the cost of convectional transportation (1 432,2% year-on-year)
have seen the demand of bicycles soaring.

Although on one hand we
seem to have regressed, as cycling to work is not a fashionable or first
choice mode of transport for the ordinary Zimbabweans, the models have
improved significantly with the disappearance of the customary "Blackhorse",
in favour of the newer and trendier Asian two wheelers.

When
others were down trading from Kombis to bicycles, as the cost of passenger
transport which rose from below $3 000 per trip on the eve of the silver
jubilee year to between $20 000 and $25 000 by the close of the same year,
those who live closer to town, mostly in the Avenues and Arcadia, have
resorted to the Do It Yourself (DIY), just walk to town. People and bicycles
are jostling for space on the now crowded cycle tracks.

Zimpost, the
country's one and only postal services company, although it did not increase
its tariffs in December compared with the same month in the prior year, it
now charges 1 827,7% more to do a transaction through the commercialised
state utility. However, given the fact that the majority of the people now
use electronic mail and mobile phones, the impact on the purse of the
ordinary individual is minimal. This is even reflected in the weight of the
communication category which, at 1,0, is the lowest.

The hardest hit
by the increase in postal charges are the credit chains like Meikles Stores,
Greatermans, Truworths, Edgars, etc, and the banks for whom it is mandatory
to send out a statement to clients each month. Conspicuous by its absence is
the component for mobile phone and Internet services, revealing the
classical index number problem inherent in the CPI calculation. The basket
in most cases fails to capture changes in technology as well as consumption
patterns. Thus the increase in cellphone tariffs is one form of inflation
which is not being reflected in the figures.

Food inflation continues to
be the dominant driver of local inflation, having increased by 25,9%
month-on-month and 717,1% annually. By Christmas 2005, those who partake in
the "waters of wisdom" were paying 904,6% more than they had done the
previous year. The inflation rate did not spare the health-conscious either,
with the prices of fruits have risen by 979,8% in December
2005.

From May 2005, a roof over one's head has become so much sought
after that the price of four walls under asbestos has risen substantially.
The cost of living on third party property is showing an annual increase of
935,7%. Obviously, the unleashing of even harsher market forces after the
clean up has had a hand in the numbers reflected in the
rentals.

Every now and then certain components of the CPI do
surprisingly go against the grain by showing month-on-month decreases for
some unexplained reason. The amount of local currency necessary for
purchasing a brand new scotch cart came down by 9% between November and
December 2005. Also something of a surprise was that telephone and telefax
services regressed by 10,9%.

2006 had started positively with almost
each day being blessed with the precious precipitation. It seems someone is
always bent at putting spanners in the works. With maize seed having been
adequately available, such that speculators who hoarded the commodity as
soon as it hit the shops were left holding the wrong end of the stick,
Zimbabwe seemed at last to have been prepared for the summer season. The
long awaited bumper harvest, which would eventually see the slowdown of food
inflation and release a fair amount of pressure on the exchange rate was at
least coming our way.

Alas, something had to go wrong. Ammonium nitrate,
a more than essential input, cannot be found in sufficient quantities to top
dress the bustling maize and cotton crop. Furthermore, the appropriately
named "army worm" has invaded some parts of the country. Something, somehow
always has to spoil the parade.

The Cairns annual general meeting
held earlier this week was as well choreographed as any meeting could be.
The chairman knew in advance who was to propose, and second, which
resolution. Those tasked with the specific responsibilities came well
prepared with their scripts in hand. All shareholders had to do was; "vote".
One tends to question the purpose of having a shareholders' meeting at which
board members are the main and sometimes the only participants.

Zim Independent Letters

Cholera latest dish on Zanu PF's
table

CHOLERA has become yet another favourite political snack on the
culinary list of unpleasant meals cooked and dished out by the ruling party
in Zimbabwe, which lacks even a twinge of conscience in cases that involve
the loss of human life.

It leaves a bad taste in the mouth that we
are forced to treat cholera as an outbreak under control when someone
bravely says only 14 people have died nationwide. It is lost on them that
life is sacrosanct.

It is however unbeknown to them that they are
making the cholera issue a delicate matter in the eyes of sensitive people
who value life. People should therefore be reminded that they only live
once, and as such they surely have to know how to deport themselves when
dealing with matters that involve life and death of fellow
citizens.

Does the party have no remorse or shame that they downplay
the value of the 14 precious lives we lost as a nation?

Not one
soul should have died if for example Harare was as clean as it used to
be.

Most people are now indignant at such careless and heartless
utterance. Little wonder that there is a call for the arrest of the Minister
of Local Government Ignatious Chombo.

It is equally treasonous to
play around with people's lives by saying "only 14 people have died". What
figure would have made Zanu PF functionaries contrite? At least 100, I
guess.

Can all these men and women who have caused misery and death
be allowed to go scot-free?

Could they escape impeachment in a
normal nation where there is the full force of the rule of
law?

Doubtless though, we are nevertheless resigned to a national
tragedy on a grand scale, where we are subjected to the high table of
miscarriages over council bankruptcy in providing services to its
ratepayers.

The minister and his accomplices in the Harare Commission
together with Town House executives have taken us for a ride.

If
cholera breaks out in Bulawayo, you will never hear of Mayor Japhet Ndabeni
Ncube again.

The Harare Commission with its partner in crime - the
town clerk - are sacred cows. They can as well wash the blood of those dead
in Harare with the city's unclean water. It is not wise to minimise the loss
of human life, like what Cain did when he said to God: "Am I my brother's
keeper?"

We should be sorry of any death of a fellow human being. I
am deeply disgusted.

The
Vulcan,

Budiriro.

---------Is history repeating
itself?

MAY the masses in Zimbabwe for a moment imagine a possible
scenario whereby power keeps eluding the MDC while Zanu PF reappears
reinvigorated to thrive.

I can foresee a situation where Zanu PF will get
tired to an extent of being unable to handle the economic
collapse.

At the same time President Mugabe will also give in to old
age, but still remain reluctant to swallow his pride and call for the repeal
of repressive laws and restoration of the rule of law.

President
Mugabe will, in his heart, have realised that "his" impoverished country
cannot thrive as an island.

At this point he will find a clever way
of disguising his surrender by hand-picking a "moderate" successor who will
call for talks with the opposition and promise to give in to demands of
ending repression.

The international community, including the
toothless United Nations and the backbiting South African president Thabo
Mbeki, will pressure the MDC into submission.

The MDC leader,
Morgan Tsvangirai, (even Welshman Ncube and Gibson Sibanda) will give in as
they will be promised the stooge post of vice-presidency as was done to the
late Joshua Nkomo.

Just look how they fought bitterly to participate
in the meaningless senatorial election.

Then what will follow is
a situation I loathe: all the economic and socio-political crimes committed
by Zanu PF will be swept under the carpet and the public's desire to
prosecute the Mugabe regime will be suppressed by the new
government.

Hooray for President Mugabe!

The new
government, probably called the Government of National Unity, will protect
him.

The rationale will be that prosecuting President Mugabe will be
an infringement of provisions of the national unity
government.

The prosecution of President Mugabe will logically mean
that his accomplices will also be prosecuted. And most of them will be
serving with the MDC in the newly-formed government!

The masses
will cry: "MDC help us to arrrest Mugabe", and the MDC will hide behind the
terms of agreement in a new government.

By this time it will be
honeymoon for MDC members in the cabinet holding ministerial and deputy
ministerial positions. The international community will then shift its focus
elsewhere.

There is logic in all this.

To completely
eliminate a strong opposition, did President Mugabe not call for unity with
PF Zapu? Was Nkomo's vice-presidency not a window dressing
gimmick?

Did the Ndebeles not cry; "Bring the Fifth Brigade to
justice?"

Didn't the Dumiso Dabengwas, Nkomos and the Joseph Msikas
silence their own people?

Is the current MDC pro-senate group not
justifying their stance of working with Zanu PF in the senate? Are the
masses not crying: "Sever the unholy alliance with Mugabe!"

Oh
Lord, lead us away from this snare of hell. May Mbeki who wants Mugabe to
thrive be judged by you. May those countries that support Mugabe's
repression be delivered from such deeds of evil.

Chris
Mafu,

Wellington,

New Zealand.

---------Take time to
reflect Trudy

Dear Trudy - IT would probably be too demanding of me to
ask you to respond personally to an email I sent you question by question as
I appreciate you might be too busy.

We certainly differ in the ways
your faction and that of Morgan Tsvangirai have taken regarding your
differences.

If only you and the 10 or so members fighting each other
regarding constitutions and policy matters reflect on the hope and faith we
had placed in you to rescue us from poverty, death and genocide we face
from

President Robert Mugabe's government, perhaps you would
understand.

The fights are so sad and let it be known that you have
let down millions of your supporters.

Let's for a while forget
about who is wrong or right and who is who.

You should know Trudy
that we are pained and no amount of decampaigning each other will unite
us.

Your fights will not benefit the man in the street, the same man
who put you in those positions which you are now fighting to maintain; the
same man who was beaten, tortured and maimed for your political cause; the
same man who sang till he lost his voice at the rallies; the same man who
sat in the sun, pouring rain and freezing conditions listening to
unfulfilled promises which have since been literally abandoned whilst we
watch you at each other's throats.

If you were honest enough
Trudy, you would note that most voters were not aware of the party's
hierarchy and even the candidates who were standing on MDC tickets in their
constituencies in the 2000 parliamentary election.

We only placed our
votes where there was the sign of the open palm. True, Trudy, it's because
we trusted you and your colleagues who now wash their dirty linen in front
of President Mugabe's media.

We just voted for anything MDC, from
Mayor Elias Mudzuri, MPs to Tsvangirai.

We didn't care whether the
MDC had an animal or a stone standing for it.

Tafadzwa Musekiwa was voted
into office not because we knew about his qualities, the same thing with
Munyaradzi Gwisai, Job Sikhala and yourself among many others, and now you
trade insults like kids!

Was it a crime voting you into office; from
Tsvangirai down to the lowest cleaner at Harvest House?

You and
everyone else concerned should take time to reflect and come up with ways of
putting an end to this ugly power fight.

Is this what the late
Tichaona Chiminya, the Elder Pfebve and scores of other supporters died for?
Is this the cause for which hundreds lost their homes in those fires started
by Zanu PF supporters?

For the past six years we placed our trust in
you but the best we could get in return was an MDC T-shirt. We deserve
better!

Suffering Man,

Harare.

-------Charity
begins at home

I AM baffled by the diplomatic community's hypocrisy, the
language they use and the plastic smiles they wear when dealing with
unsuspecting members of the public, among many other ills.

have of
late been to the Japanese Embassy where I noticed that two security guards
posted at their entrance were starving.

There are no chairs for these
guards to sit on.

During lunch, these poor souls wander into the
Harare Gardens to eat buns. Office bureaucracy does not allow them to eat at
the embassy, I can reveal.

It makes a good comedy when they (embassy
staff) embark on long trips to far-flung places such as Dande and Binga to
hand over donations in either cash or kind, leaving behind starving security
personnel to keep watch over their embassy.

What is the
diplomatic explanation in making a starving security guard stand for 10
continuous hours at their door? Decorum? My foot!

For heaven's sake,
charity begins at home, not in some remote place with flashing cameras of
the news crews.

Tazvireva,

Shabane.

-----Tsunami
hypocrisy abhorrent

DURING President Robert Mugabe and family's holiday
in Thailand this year, Zimbabweans were subjected to rerun clips of them
paying their respects to victims of the December 2004 Asian
tsunami.

Of course we all share the victims' grief and sympathise with
them, but what about our own "tsunami"?

The cruel Operation
Murambatsvina, which came so unexpectedly,destroyed over 700 000 people's
homes and shattered the livelihoods of over two million people in most of
our cities and towns.

We did not have nearly as many deaths as the
Indian Ocean tsunami - thank God - but some Zimbabweans did die, here at
home.

Our tragedy is that ours was a man-made, entirely preventable
tsunami, thought up and carried out by President Mugabe's government and
security forces.

The Zimbabwe government airlifted water to the
tsunami disaster area last year, and an appeal was set up to raise relief
funds while here it took the local and international humanitarian
organisations some considerable time and effort to persuade government to
allow them to provide water and other emergency relief to our own
victims.

Government is still barring the provision of any temporary
shelter by the United Nations and other agencies.

Meanwhile,
pathetic settlements of our own tsunami victims are re-establishing
themselves and growing, alongside the disgracefully few Operation Garikai
houses.

Victims have found shelter under cardboard, plastic and
anything else they can find, and rely almost completely on water, food,
medicines and other necessities being provided by humanitarian
agencies.

If they try to earn their own living in informal trade,
they are chased away and their wares stolen from them, unless they produce a
licence, notoriously difficult to obtain if they do not hold a ruling party
card.

As for praising our own tsunami, because without it there would
have been even more cases of cholera and other diseases, let those officials
get in their 4x4 vehicles and plough through the mud to visit Hatcliffe
Extension or Hopley Farm today, to see for themselves the conditions those
victims are living under, eight months after Operation
Murambatsvina.

The MDC condemns this tsunami hypocrisy for what it
is, and challenges the Mugabe government to accept the emergency relief,
including temporary shelter, which the United Nations and other humanitarian
agencies are willing to provide to our own victims.

Trudy
Stevenson,

Spokesperson for Local

Government and

Housing,
MDC.

-------Enlighten us please!

I AM anxiously waiting to see
how the Zimbabwe Allied Banking Group (ZABG) is going to list on the ZSE in
light of a Supreme Court judgement by Justice Wilson Sandura threatening the
existence of the bank due to its use of assets belonging to suspended banks
which have since taken the ZABG to court for that reason.

I am
interested in seeing the way the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) will react
and if the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) will allow it to operate
considering the Supreme Court ruling.

Is it because the ZABG is a
baby of the RBZ?

Could the relevant authorities please enlighten
us?

Livison Kahondo,

UK.

--------Help get our kids
to school on time

THERE is no doubt in my mind that the much-loathed
Operation Murambatsvina, embarked upon by government in May last year, has
wreaked havoc not only among the working class and small-to-medium
enterprises, but also school children.

Many families have had to
relocate, meaning some children now have to connect at least two buses to
school after their former homes deemed illegal by government were
razed.

This effectively means many of our children are getting to
school late, missing lessons in the process. Changing schools would have
meant forking out a fortune in school uniforms whose prices have soared to
alarming levels. Add to that unreasonably high rentals we have to pay where
we have taken up new accommodation.

An already underpaid and
demoralised teacher therefore cannot be expected to be patient and help out
in such cases.

My humble plea is therefore to our transport operators
to approach our schools to work out modalities on how we can together go
around the problem.

It seems School Development Associations are
reluctant to think along these lines arguing children should go to their
prescribed zones. We must however appreciate the anxiety and trauma we cause
children through changing schools.

This is an opportunity for
operators to make money instead of spending time parked elsewhere waiting
for passengers.

I would recommend Zupco in such areas as Kuwadzana
and Dzivaresekwa.

We used to have these ferrying school children to
Alfred Beit, Ellis Robins and Mabelreign Girls High Schools in the late 80s
but wonder what caused the discontinuation of service.

Could it
be anything to do with the plummeting fortunes of Zupco or lack of concern
for our children? And besides, children used to pay reasonable fares - half
the fare of an adult on the same route.

I feel this is the simplest
way parents can complement government's efforts in maintaining our education
standards and high literacy levels which have been the envy of many on the
continent.

But should things remain the way they are, with teachers
and operators seemingly taking no interest in our children's education, our
education system could be headed for the abyss.

LAST year I was soundly denounced by the pro-government
media for pointing out in the Zimbabwe Independent the state of affairs and
risks associated with our water supply and wastewater management
system.

These warnings were based on sound scientific research. Now
the Harare City (not council, because it was sacked) has shut down the most
vibrant trading area - Mbare Musika, to avert a cholera
epidemic.

Cabbages are not carriers of E coli, but cabbages
handled by people who come into contact with our blocked sewers as they walk
to and from work.

Shutting down this trading facility has
wide-reaching repercussions in terms of livelihoods, just like the
much-loathed Operation Murambatsvina.

What Harare Commission
chairperson Sekesai Makwavarara should shut down is not the market, but her
belching sewer leaks.

Professor Chris Magadza,

Harare.

-------Stay in opposition to rule some day

JANUARY
16 was the inauguration day of Mama Africa - President of Liberia, Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf, who is Africa's first elected female president.

She has
promised to lead by example, while sustaining and pursuing a policy of equal
distribution of wealth to all deserving Liberians.

Sirleaf will thus
attract the sympathies of most Western countries and aid is expected to flow
like manna from heaven.

Reconstruction of the economy of Liberia,
having been ravaged by war, will be a mountain to climb
though.

And for a woman to meet expectations of the Liberians will be
a historical and non-forgettable feat for the whole of
Africa.

Reconstruction shall therefore require the participation of
every Liberian, which brings us to the case of Sirleaf's bitter political
rival - George Weah.

Weah, as requested by many, should not join the
Sirleaf government, but continue exploring the political landscape of
Liberia to offer a strong opposition leadership to keep this lady on her
toes in service delivery.

It is through an objective opposition that
ensures "checks and balances" are undertaken, that Sirleaf will fulfill her
promises.

Weah should remember that if he chooses to join the
government, any mistake or failure will also be attributed to him, making it
impossible for him to run again for office if his name is
besmirched.

He should remain visible on the Liberian political scene
to learn the ropes of African political processes.

Just like it
has not come on a silver platter for Sirleaf, the same will be for
Weah.

If he will ever rule, let him reside in opposition and not rush
to accept political appointment in the government.

Political
offices in Africa do not come so easily as Weah thought. One needs to
struggle and persevere until the appropriate time comes, and with it
maturity for office.

But this does not mean he has to undermine
Sirleaf''s rule.

African female presidents have never been tested, so
this should send a signal to Weah to play his political cards appropriately
in his new role of opposition leader.

Aubrey
Chindefu,

Lusaka,

Zambia.

-----Calling for a good
cause

I AM calling upon all who are interested in being counted for a
good cause.

A new association called Harare In Hope is on the cards. It
seeks to establish hope in the people of Zimbabwe by building a people
willing and prepared to come up with practical solutions needed to get our
economy back on the rails again.

The association seeks to create
a pool of ideas that will serve as a resource base for solutions that will
be forwarded to concerned government departments in efforts to influence
positive change in our economy.

We sometimes make constructive
criticisms hence our desire to turn them into proposals that our leaders can
consider for implementation.

Harare In Hope seeks among other
objectives, to play a pivotal role in creating a sustainable development
programme that alleviates woes of the under-privileged.

CONGRATULATIONS to Joram Nyathi on a truly excellent article on
the land reform in Zimbabwe, "Tale of land reform gone awry", (Zimbabwe
Independent, January 13).

His identification of the lack of a culture
of long-term investment and the prevalence of a "jackpot mentality" really
goes to the core of the problem.

While the Western world was
horrified by the fast-track land reform, much of Africa saw it fit to give
President Robert Mugabe a standing ovation.

The West was horrified
because they foresaw the utter destruction of the long-term investment that
had been required to create commercial agricultural in Zimbabwe; their
dissension was never entirely about protecting their white kith and
kin.

Africa was ecstatic; it was a supreme jackpot moment. President
Mugabe had captured a century of investment in one bold move. Of course the
wheels have now fallen off because only a very few won the jackpot, and a
huge majority is much worse off than before. It's always that way with
jackpots. His erstwhile African supporters are now deserting him. There was
no jackpot for them.

Zimbabwe might get rid of its incompetent
Minister of Agriculture, or its autocratic president may retire, but will
those events set it surely on the path to prosperity?

No, not so
long as the people have a "jackpot mentality". What does a jackpot mentality
actually entail?

It seems to be a belief that life is one big
lottery, and that one just needs to wait for the lucky chance; the jackpot
moment, when one can be transformed from a poor peasant to a wealthy member
of the elite.

It obviates the necessity for hard work, for long-term
investment of energy, skill, time, resources; all is predicated on the lucky
chance - the jackpot.

The jackpot mentality undermines such valuable
characteristics as hard work, honesty and trustworthiness, important traits
when one believes in long-term investment. Rather the jackpot mentality
encourages indolence, cunning, lack of principle, short-term thinking, a
willingness to go where the wind blows and to shift anywhere the jackpot
might be.

Tens of thousands of well-educated, supposedly ethical
Zimbabweans signed up for President Mugabe's land jackpot. It didn't work
out for most of them. But they signed up anyway; and that is what has helped
him stay in power to this day.

So what is the
solution?

The real long-term solution does not lie in firing Joseph
Made or persuading President Mugabe to resign, although they and all the
other jackpot mentality types in government would have to go for any
progress to be made.

The solution lies in an ethical and spiritual
renewal of Zimbabwean society that forsakes the jackpot mentality and
embraces hard work, dedication and honesty; a mental outlook that embraces a
long-term commitment to national development within a context of fairness,
equity and natural justice.

God knows we need to change. Only a deep
social transformation can stop the recurrence of all the ailments that have
beset Africa since the advent of the age of Independence. There is no reason
that such a transformation should not arise out of the ashes of President
Mugabe's destructive misrule.

Richard
Owen,

Harare.

-----My prayer for Chombo

IF medals were
to be awarded to the most bungling cabinet minister, I think Local
Government minister, Ignatious Chombo, would this time pip one Joseph Made
who seems to have withdrawn from the limelight, preferring to err in
silence.

Relocation of the vegetable market from Mbare to Belvedere
was apparently made without prior planning as was the relocation of bus
termini to various residential areas.

At most of these places,
people are being drenched to the bone as there are no sheds to protect them
from the vagaries of the weather. Neither are there public toilets for
relief when nature dictates. Imagine the confusion this
causes!

With the rains upon us for quite some time if the weather
man is to be taken seriously, and when the rains are over, hopefully plenty
of sunshine, is the minister aware of our plight? We trudge through the mud
as we queue for the buses and by the time we get home we will be muddied. My
humble prayer is that Chombo, like the biblical Paul, one day sees the light
and feels for us.

Sludge-friendly

Editor's Memo

Vincent KahiyaTHE government has
announced that it is phasing out the use of leaded fuel in two months' time
because it is harmful to us. It will be replaced by the cleaner burning
unleaded fuel which costs slightly more.

Press reports have said
Zimbabwe, working in tandem with other African countries, has undertaken to
improve the continent's health and environment.

It is true lead does
have harmful properties when inhaled or swallowed. Scientists have said it
can cause neurological disorders if ingested in large
quantities.

I can imagine the state of mind of those mechanics who
suck petrol to aid failing fuel pumps and street fuel merchants who take
gulps of it while siphoning the poison from drums and makeshift
tanks.

Doors to the rooms of neuro-surgeons should be swinging on
their hinges faster than those public toilets at Market Square. My
apologies, most of the doors have been stolen.

The threat of lead
poisoning sounds really scary. Consider the lengths of presidential
motorcades in Africa. African heads who pledged at the Earth Summit in
Johannesburg in 2002 to rid the continent of leaded fuel have over the years
burnt millions of litres of leaded fuel and contributed to neurological
disorders in scores of children, if they have not been affected by the
brain-damaging metals themselves.

Scientists in Indiana, US, last
year discovered that seasonal gusts of winds picked up lead in dust and
deposited it into homes causing brain damage, behavioural problems, impaired
growth and hearing loss, especially in children.

Scientists
reviewed meteorological records, soil-lead concentrations and
epidemiological results for about 32 000 children in Indianapolis, New
Orleans and Syracuse, New York, between 1994 and 2003.

Using a
computer model, they found they could predict with high accuracy the average
monthly blood-lead readings among children in the three cities, based on
local weather conditions, soil moisture and lead levels.

Our Ministry
of Energy and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, leading the crusade
against leaded fuel, have failed dismally in educating the public on the
dangers of lead and other heavy metals.

The general statements that
have come out in the press seem to suggest that lead is only found in our
leaded petrol. Their campaign is academic because our environment is replete
with dangerous heavy metals discharged into river systems by mining
companies and industries.

Studies have revealed high levels of lead
and contaminants in drinking water in Harare. There is also serious water
poisoning from anoxia, ammonia and a cocktail of gas emissions bubbling from
the bottom of Lake Chivero.

The chemistry of urban water in Zimbabwe
should be a major concern for government and atmospheric poisoning caused by
leaded fuel but also from buses and heavy trucks belching blue half-burnt
diesel smoke with no action by the authorities despite the carbon tax we
pay.

Garages and vehicle service centres are notorious for pouring
used oil into drains and ultimately into streams and dams supplying our
water.

These are a few examples that government, through more prudent
planning and strict monitoring of local authority by-laws and environmental
legislation, can address. But our government cannot be trusted with getting
their priorities right in anything.

Our ministers would rather go
to an international conference to discuss the dangers of leaded fuel but
take defensive positions when the clear and present danger posed by our poor
water, sewerage rivulets on the streets and uncollected garbage are raised.
That's being environmentally friendly! Remember the ozone layer craze of the
late 1980s.

The Zimbabwe National Water Authority entrusted with
safeguarding the quality of our water sources insists the water in Harare is
safe and meets World Health Organisation standards but numerous scientific
research projects have revealed otherwise.

We have been told
cholera caused by garbage and water cuts is under control, the issue of
sewerage in Chitungwiza is being addressed.etc.

Leaded fuel is
undoubtedly a threat. But so is cholera and other waterborne diseases. Show
me a grave of a person killed by lead poisoning and I will show you hundreds
entombing Aids and cholera victims.

What would an average Hararian
stomach today: a car full of leaded fuel or a pile of uncollected garbage by
his/her gate or a sewerage stream crossing through his vegetable
garden?

Because of neurological disorders caused by leaded petrol,
perhaps, we would rather entertain the sewerage and the garbage. But they
are equally menacing to our nation's health.

Did anyone hear the
stunning revelation this week by Water Resources minister, Munacho Mutezo,
about the water we drink?

He said there was sludge (he did not
specify what it was but it's definitely not pudding) at the bottom of one of
the water-holding tanks at Morton Jaffray water works. The tanks, he said,
had not been cleaned for almost five years when they should be cleaned every
year. That is not environmentally-friendly.

There are a number of
facilities that have not been cleaned for some time like the streets of
Harare, Mbare Musika and the Zanu PF government. Imagine the depth of sludge
that has been gathering there for 26 years?

Contrasting perceptions of national security

By Chido
MakunikeYOU would be surprised at what you can learn about a country and its
rulership from just observing its style of presidential
motorcade.

The whole approach to the visibility and accessibility of the
presidential palace also reveals a lot about the prevailing relationship
between the ruler and those he rules.

We live in a world in which
assassinations by governments, groups or individuals are no longer uncommon.
Some high profile ones have taken place before TV cameras, gruesomely
preserved for posterity.

Suicide bombings have increasingly become a
deadly guerilla tool in recent years. So for all these and many other
reasons, presidential security everywhere in the world is a very serious
business. No effort is spared to try to guarantee it, regardless of the
overall means and economic capability of the country in
question.

In some countries the presidential motorcade is far more
than just a secure way of rapidly and safely ferrying the president from one
point to another.

Whether by design or unwittingly, many symbolisms about
the political system of the country in question and the ruler at a
particular time are sent out by the style of the motorcade.

Let
us contrast the security around the president in two mythical nations:
country Y and country Z.

In country Z the presidential motorcade
on the surface provides security and unimpeded mobility for the president as
everywhere else in the world. But it is also a symbol of brutality and
disrespect for the population. It is designed to cause maximum inconvenience
and rouse feelings of intimidation as much as possible.

The
citizens of country Z have often complained about how unnecessarily
obstructive the motorcade is to other motorists and passersby. The
motorcycle outriders and soldiers sit menacingly in open trucks with their
guns ready and seemingly eager to shoot, just as riot soldiers squeal with
delight at the chance to beat up their fellow citizens for doing no more
than march or protest.

They delight in being abusive in the way
they order other vehicles off the road. Many motorists have been slapped
around by the bullying security detail for one minor thing or another. Every
now and then letters are written to the media lamenting the abusiveness of
the ruler's praetorian guard.

"Why are these soldiers not more
respectful of, and courteous to the public in the conduct of their job of
protecting the ruler?" is the gist of the bitter, sullen
complaints.

Those who have been abused and other citizens who are
appalled at the signs of contempt for the public by the ruling authority
miss the point that the abuse is entirely intentional.

The whole
exercise is not just to protect the life and health of the ruler, but to
send the message that he is untouchable and to humiliate while doing
so.

It is a way of saying "we are quite aware that we are thuggish in
the conduct of our job, but we have absolute impunity to be that way, and we
want you to know it".

In country Y on the other hand, the
presidential motorcade seems surprisingly unpretentious compared to country
Z. The wailing sirens are there too but it is for just a few minutes.
Compared to country Z, country Y's motorcade is short, rapid and designed to
cause minimal disruption to other citizens on the road.

The few
outriders at the front firmly and authoritatively wave motorists to the side
of the road but there is no menace in their gestures as in country Z.
Citizens absent-mindedly watch the brief spectacle with mild interest, but
without the passionate, sullen hatred and shaking of heads of the citizens
of country Z at their ruler's motorcade.

In country Z it is entirely
normal and expected that motorists would be threatened or stopped and
intimidated for not stopping fast enough, getting clear of the road and
acting humbly, even when it is clear they pose no danger or inconvenience to
the motorcade.

The whole pomp and ceremony of it after all is not
merely about the ruler's security, but about asserting and showing control
and physical dominance.

Making that display of raw, brute military force
to the citizens is a deliberate part of the whole overdone farce. It is a
way of saying to them "we know many of you don't like this/us but we want
you to know and see that it doesn't matter. We don't give a damn what you
like or don't like, we are simply here to control you by any means
necessary."

This is just one particularly graphic way of making this
point for the ruling authority of country Z, but it is also made in the
cynical conduct of elections, the willy-nilly dissolutions of elected bodies
and their replacement by appointees and in various other ways.

In
country Z you have good reason to be fearful to be anywhere in the vicinity
of the presidential palace. Stories of people who have been abused or killed
in that area are legion and feed the intended image of a menacing, ruthless
authority that should be feared. The whole compound is walled off not only
because of the ruler's paranoia and insecurity, but to give him a sense of
hiding and separation from the citizens.

In country Y and many others
on the other hand, security around the presidential palace is also tight but
is effected in a way that is startlingly different from that in unhappy
country Z.

In country Y the presidential palace is not just the
official home and security bunker of the ruler, it is also a national symbol
of the political seat of power.

As such it is secure but it is also
on display for the citizens to see and feel connected to it.

The
security perimeter is made of strong but see-through metal railing, rather
than high, ugly pre-fabricated concrete panels. One is able from the outside
to admire the manicured lawn and bushes without worrying about being shot by
the many alert but un-intimidating soldiers, policemen and other security
details that mill around.

One marvels at how successfully country Y
is able to combine the twin needs of security for the president's official
residence with a relaxed openness that is in keeping with a mature, relaxed
democratic country at peace with itself.

In country Y one has a
sense of a good balance between the need for providing security for the
president and respecting the citizens whom that president is supposed to
represent. In country Z on the other hand, all this sense of proportion and
regard for the citizens has been lost and corrupted, sacrificed as the
person of the ruler has been allowed to become more important than the
wishes or best interests of those he rules over.

These are some of my
impressions as I experience and enjoy my journey of discovery and contrast.
What is your perception of presidential security in your own country, and
what does it say about the relationship between the rulers and the
ruled?

Chombo sporting a soiled crown

Zim Independent

By Denford MagoraIT
is reprehensible and despicable in the extreme for government to treat the
executive mayor of Chitungwiza, Misheck Shoko, in the manner they have
done.

The man has been "suspended", an action that is itself moot,
because he was doomed the day President Mugabe demanded his head in public.
This latest overturning of the people's will has, yet again, been met only
by soft whimpering from an MDC that is chewing off its own
feet.

No one, not even President Mugabe himself and his greying
poodle, Ignatious Chombo, believe that the mayor had to go on the grounds of
incompetence.

The crimes for which the mayor of Chitungwiza was
sentenced to removal from office by President Mugabe are certainly no worse
nor bigger than those committed by his own commission running the affairs of
the capital.

Before Mugabe and Chombo attempted to remove the splinter in
Chitungwiza's eye, they should have attended to the log in the eye of their
undemocratic commission in Harare. This commission has failed completely to
turn the tide.

The very real gains registered by fired executive
mayor, Elias Mudzuri, in turning around the fortunes of Harare were brutally
vandalised by the "mafia" that is now running the city of Harare. This is a
"mafia" whose mandate comes not from the people, but from President Mugabe
himself. Chitungwiza will now go the way of Harare. For a long time, the
city held out, avoiding the fate that befell Harare soon after Mudzuri was
fired.

Shoko and his people, under trying circumstances and downright
sabotage of their efforts by Chombo, managed to get the city ticking over.
Eventually, even they succumbed. They could not remain an island of
cleanliness in a sea of filth. The human waste that not only flows in Harare
but also runs the capital finally found its way into
Chitungwiza.

The leaders of Zanu PF (their actions, not their
electoral successes, have taken away all claims to be leaders of the people)
saw their chance and decided to swoop like jackals on a city council that
they themselves had injured.

Campaigning for the senate election
in Chitungwiza, President Mugabe declared that it was the worst place in the
country. We shall say nothing about Epworth. We shall also say nothing about
under-developed rural areas.

Instead, we shall say something about
Harare itself. President Mugabe apparently believes things are going
swimmingly in the capital. A day after his tirade in Chitungwiza, his own
state media published photos of children jumping over streams of raw sewage
in Kuwadzana.

There are mountains of rubbish in the streets all over
the one-time Sunshine Capital. The city's water supply has been condemned by
Mugabe's own government as unfit for human consumption. In fact, the state
of the water is such that you feed it to your pets and chickens at your own
risk!

Potholes the size of the Lake of Tranquility pepper even our
major roads, such as the highway that links us to both South Africa and
Mozambique - the Enterprise Road.

The days when Mudzuri could
resurface these roads completely in a matter of days are not wanted anymore
by the government.

The arrogance of unelected tin-pot dictators at
Town House has seen them brush all the residents' concerns
aside.

Citizens were told to pay up "whether the rubbish is collected
or not". It is a betrayal of the sort of mentality at central government
level itself that this sort of language, attitude and public relations is
rewarded with a promotion in Zanu PF. That tells you all you need to know
about just how much President Mugabe and Chombo care whether you die of
cholera or not.

Leaving the capital city in the state that it has
been in since the commission took over can be likened to a king putting on a
crown smeared with human waste. The pride of our nation - the capital city -
is in a worse state than a provincial town in China. If there was any shame
left in our politicians, we would have seen a few resignations - not only at
Town House but also at central government level. This soiled jewel of the
nation, the rulers do not see. Instead, they are "livid" at the state of
Chitungwiza and vow to "take action".

If they are in doubt at all
about the state of their credibility with the people of Zimbabwe and
Chitungwiza in particular, they should just ask people at random this one
question: "Do you believe that the firing of Mayor Shoko and his replacement
by a Zanu PF appointee will result in the improvement of services in
Chitungwiza?"

The answer, as I have already found out, is a no. In
fact, most people look to Harare to give an accurate prediction of how
things will turn out in Chitungwiza. Services will continue to deteriorate.
Having failed to master the situation, the government will emerge from its
slumber and point to sanctions and "bad publicity" as the root causes of
their inability to return Chitungwiza to normalcy.

They will also
acknowledge the inadequate rates they have been forcing local authorities to
stick to. Maybe they will allow the charging of competitive rates, without
requiring a rise in service delivery from their appointed commission. Then,
if Chitungwiza is as lucky as Harare, the council will be broken down into
"strategic business units" in order to "turn things around".

This
will amount to nothing, naturally, because it is Zanu PF that is attempting
the turnaround.

The party has, over the last six years or so, proved
itself incapable of even turning a bicycle around in an empty parking lot,
let alone a whole economy or the fortunes of an entire modern
city.

Further, elections will be banned, as they do in brand new
military dictatorships. Instead a commission whose tenure will be extended
ad nauseam is going to perform the funeral rites for Chitungwiza, with
enthusiastic applause from President Mugabe and Chombo.

Always,
when people ask why things are not getting better, the rulers will deign to
lower the windows of their Mercedes Benzes and tell the masses about
"sanctions called for by (Morgan) Tsvangirai", roll up their windows and
drive on to manicured gardens on their full bellies.

It matters not
to them, of course, that, as they sup in Harare, they are literally enjoying
their sumptuous meals in one big stinking public toilet. So long as they
rule that toilet, all other concerns are superfluous. Their rallying cry of
late: "It is better to misgovern ourselves than to be governed by
anyone."

If you do not agree, you imperialist running dog, then take
heed of National Security minister Didymus Mutasa's genocidal comments: "We
would rather be left with only our own supporters in
Zimbabwe."

He wished, like one past ruler of Europe, that all those
opposed to him and his inefficient government had one neck, which he could
sever!

The rest, those who are not Zanu PF supporters, have no right
to be here. But, above all, remember that these words are being spoken by an
inefficient government minister who failed a simple task of auditing farms
taken from a mere 4 000 white farmers. Remember also that these words are
being spoken in a democracy, where, by definition, divergence of opinion is
not only tolerated but also encouraged!

Remember all this and
realise that Zimbabwe, where there will be more food shortages again in
2006/7, is doomed and there is nothing our government can do to change these
things.

Another life outside State House

Zim Independent

Joram NyathiAN
event of historic importance took place in Maputo, Mozambique, last week. It
was the meeting of former African leaders to found an Africa Forum whose
objectives are, according to a declaration issued after the meeting, "to
continue, in our private capacities, to share our individual and collective
experiences, knowledge and commitment to the promotion of justice, peace,
security, stability and development in Africa", reports The Southern
Times.

Although the event brought together a galaxy of Africa's sons,
there was scant media coverage in Zimbabwe. One possible explanation is
obviously that we don't have a former president although we have one of the
longest-serving leaders on the continent.

Age-wise, President
Robert Mugabe would have fitted neatly into the league of Nelson Mandela,
Kenneth Kaunda, Jerry Rawlings and Sir Ketumile Masire. Instead, he has
opted to join the club of infamy led until recently by Gnassibe Eyadema, who
died in July after 38 years as ruler of Togo, and Gabon's Omar Bongo whose
reign is only eight months shorter.

Mugabe has no peers in Sadc. All
who came in before or just after him have quit.

It is perhaps
instructive that the former presidents and prime ministers chose to launch
the Forum on our doorsteps in Mozambique.

In their declaration, they
said they were "encouraged" by an emerging culture of peace on the continent
and a "determination among African leaders to relinquish power upon expiry
of their terms of office".

Zimbabwe's constitution does not prescribe
term limits for presidents. Thus Mugabe is in his 26th year in power and
apparently not yet ready to be called a "former".

The 16 retired
leaders meeting in Maputo were perhaps hoping that the echo of their
declaration would be heard across the border. It is an inference I have made
from past visits by Sadc presidents who are about to leave
office.

President Joachim Chissano of Mozambique came to bid Mugabe
farewell before he left office. Sam Nujoma of Namibia did the same after his
efforts to amend the constitution to extend his leadership one more time
were thwarted. The last (or is it latest?) was Benjamin Mkapa of
Tanzania.

My charitable interpretation was that these leaders were
subtly trying to convey a message, that there is life outside the
presidency, that while they are younger in age and experience, they might
just set an example for our nearly 82-year-old president.

But
apparently the visits are not seen in the same light at Munhumutapa
Building. Anybody harbouring any such romantic notions would probably be
told politely not to "misdirect their efforts".

Tanzania's young
new president Jakaya Kikwete must have been surprised to hear Mugabe
promising to work closely with him when he should have been talking of
joining Mkapa in retirement to write his memoirs.

The biggest
disappointment for me about the Africa Forum declaration was its
squeamishness and failure to make a bold statement about leaders who won't
leave office even when it is clear that they have ruined their countries.
Nobody believes Mugabe's claim that "no one could have managed the economy
better than I have done".

Unemployment is conservatively put at
75% while the economy has shrunk to 1953 levels. The January year-on-year
inflation rate is forecast to go beyond 600% from 585,8% in December.
Service delivery in urban centres has all but collapsed while fuel shortages
have become endemic. Food is scarce and when available is out of the reach
of the poor. This is a dubious feat for any leader and is certainly hard to
match.

Even as the former leaders said they planned to contribute to
the ideals of Nepad and Thabo Mbeki's African Renaissance, there was no bold
pronouncement to show that the Forum heralds a departure from past practices
of brotherly solidarity among dictators.

Explained interim Forum
chairman Chissano the scope of their operations: "Our activity has no limits
- apart from our principles of not causing offence to the current
leaderships."

What a huge letdown to what should have been a noble
effort to help sitting leaders evacuate office with their dignity still
intact!

Mugabe was conspicuous by the lack of bold resolutions at the
meeting. For the truth is, whether one likes him or not, for all his many
faults, fear of "causing offence" is not one of them. That is why he refused
to compromise with his African colleagues at the Sirte meeting in Libya on
the issue of seats in the Security Council. That is why no African leader
dares cross his path, even with a mild rebuke for human rights
violations.

The Africa Forum should be more forthright about what the
continent needs than fellow sitting presidents who may be wary of throwing
stones from glass houses.

Still, I hope Mugabe will accept the
"invitation" to the club of former African leaders so the continent can
benefit from his experience of a quarter of a century at the helm - wanted
or not.

Government greed fuels inflation

Zim Independent

Shakeman
Mugari

ZIMBABWE 'S galloping inflation rate is likely to break the 622%
record set in January 2004 as the economic meltdown continues
unabated.

Analysts say indications are that the year-on-year inflation
rate, which reached 585,8% in December, will end the first quarter well
above 622% with major drivers being government profligacy and central bank's
money-printing spree.

The analysts said the January figures, which
are due mid next month, will surpass the 622% record, throwing into disarray
the Reserve Bank's target of 80% by year-end. They say Zimbabweans should
brace themselves for another gruelling year as things will get worse before
they get better - if they get better at all.

Last week the Central
Statistical Office (CSO) reported that although month-on-month inflation for
December shed 8,7 percentage points to 18,3 percentage points on the
November figure of 27 percentage points, year-on-year inflation had
increased 83,4 percentage points.

"This means that prices as measured by
the all-items CPI increased by an average of 585,8% between December 2004
and December 2005," the CSO said. Apart from money printing and government's
spendthrift ways, the recent plunge in the local currency will contribute
significantly to the inflation, analysts say.

The dollar has been
sliding drastically over the past three months owing to a serious foreign
currency crisis and lack of exports. The RBZ, whose main responsibility is
to maintain the stability of the local currency, has not helped the
situation with its policies. It is buying US dollars for $90 000:US$1 on the
open market and feeding them to government for a paltry $26 000.

The
government debt, caused mainly by populist policies like funding parastatals
and local councils, has fuelled inflation. CFX Financial Services economist
Blessing Sakupwanya said inflation could end the first quarter around
700%.

"At this rate of government borrowing, there is no way inflation
can come down anytime soon," Sakupwanya said. "Things will certainly get
worse."

The domestic debt has ballooned to $15 trillion, about 11,7% of
the national budget of $128 trillion presented in November. Sakupwanya said
apart from the foreign currency crunch and money supply, other factors that
will push inflation are recent increases in school fees, food prices,
accommodation and general services.

Medical costs which were
increased by an average 100% and council tariffs are likely to stoke the
inflation spiral, further eroding incomes.

A recent report by the
Consumer Council of Zimbabwe said a family of six now needs a whopping $17
million to survive for a month and the figure is likely to increase
drastically.

For its part the government seems not to have an answer to
the inflation crisis. Apart from blame shifting, there has been no
meaningful fiscal effort to rein in inflation.

There are indications
that the central bank is losing the battle against inflation because of its
failure to keep government's spending in check.

Latest RBZ figures show
that money supply growth increased to 411% in November from 385,8% in
October. Sakupwanya said until money supply growth is curbed, inflation will
continue to gallop.

Under normal circumstances, money supply growth is
supposed to be in line with the country's economic growth. "It's skewed and
dangerous that our economic growth is -3% and our money supply growth is
411%. That is why inflation is this high," Sakupwanya said.

The
explanation for the inflation from the RBZ has varied according to the
situation and time. Judging by RBZ governor Gideon Gono's statements last
year, the blame now lies squarely with government.

Soon after his
appointment in December 2003, Gono lashed out at bankers accusing them of
speculating and fuelling inflation. A crackdown soon afterwards saw the
closure of banks and the arrest of their chief executives. And for some time
Gono seemed to be on top of the situation, cutting the inflation rate from
622% in January 2004 to about 123% in January last year.

That trend
was however broken in the lead-up to the March election and inflation has
been galloping ever since. Questions are being asked whether the monetary
authorities correctly identified the problem when they cracked down on
bankers. Since their arrest inflation has increased drastically.

Gono now
blames drought for the inflation. However, analysts say government, with the
RBZ acting as its major conduit for domestic borrowing, has become the
biggest contributor to inflation.

Economist John Robertson said while
inflation might be a result of many factors, the main cause in Zimbabwe is
government's extravagance, coupled with the RBZ's quasi-fiscal role.
Government has continued to borrow lavishly to finance recurrent expenditure
instead of production.

"The result is that you push inflation up because
you are borrowing to spend instead of producing," said Robertson, adding
that: "It becomes a cycle of borrowing to service loans."

He said
contraction of production in all sectors of industry was also contributors
to inflation. Borrowed money drives inflation unless it is put to good use
by increasing production.

Perhaps the most apparent indicator that the
government is surviving on borrowed money is the widening budget deficit. In
his budget statement Finance minister Herbert Murerwa said the deficit was
going to be about -4,6%.

Last year the International Monetary Fund
projected the budget deficit at around 14% of GDP. Robertson said the budget
deficit wascaused by government which has developed a habit of spending
money it does not have.

He said reckless policies like the land
reform which sabotaged agricultural production and the controversial
senatorial election were adding to the problem.

"We cannot reduce
inflation if industry is collapsing and agricultural production is at its
lowest," Robertson said. The RBZ itself had also contributed immensely to
the inflation pressure by doling out trillions to non-performing and
corruption-ridden parastatals.

Last year alone the central bank splashed
about $22 trillion on parastatals and local authorities in an effort to
improve their services. But that money has not translated into improved
service delivery and efficiency.

TNF protocol probably a damp squib

Zim Independent

Eric Bloch
Column

FOR at least five years Zimbabwean economists, many of the
captains of commerce and industry, and many others, have yearned for
Zimbabwe to engage in a social contract. Essentially, that is an agreement
between government, the business sector and labour to effect a freeze on all
prices, charges, salaries and wages, and taxes, for a period of
time.

Doing so does not, in itself, bring about economic well-being, but
it creates an enabling environment which facilitates constructive economic
transformation. It does so by bringing about a virtual halt to inflation, as
such a contract generally only provides for prices to be increased to the
extent that external forces, such as price increases in supplier countries
dictate, and salaries and wages are only subject to increase commensurately
with the impact of any such unavoidable price increases.

Whilst that
enabling environment is in place, requisite measures are implemented to
strengthen the economic base sufficiently that, after an appropriate
effluxion of time, the social contract can terminate, and the economy driven
successfully by market forces.

In contradistinction, when an effective
social contract is not in place, continuing hyperinflation is almost
inevitable, and that is a primary catalyst for a myriad of other economic
ills, including non-competitiveness in export markets, minimal investment
generation, intensifying corruption, declining productivity, and much
else.

The success of social contracts as platforms for economic
metamorphosis has been demonstrated internationally on very many occasions,
including in Germany in 1922, when inflation soared to over 8 000%, in
Israel in 1977, in Bolivia in 1981, in Mauritius in 1984, and in many other
instances.

It was in recognition of the high desirability for a social
contract that the Zimbabwean government, strongly supported by the National
Economic Consultative Forum (NECF), sought to bring into being, a few years
ago, the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF), composed of representatives of
the state, of the business sector (including industry, commerce,
agriculture, mining, employers' associations, and others, and of
labour).

Intermittently, the TNF had meetings, but one after another
failed to achieve consensus on a social contract, and increasingly the
populace developed a perspective that the TNF was naught but an unproductive
"talk-shop".

Then, at the beginning of the last week, the TNF
announced that it had developed a prices, and incomes stabilisation protocol
which it envisages will imminently be signed by all the member groups within
the TNF. Allegedly all are agreeable to an array of individual and combined
actions, primarily directed at the eradication of poverty, reduction in
inflation, and stemming economic stagnation.

To all intents and
purposes, the protocol is a social contract, albeit yet to be signed. The
TNF indicates that the protocol will provide for a sub-committee to monitor
prices of essential goods and services, and the committee will negotiate
with producers for price levels that have regard for affordability and for
business viability. Such negotiated prices will then be pegged and only
subject to increase in instances of justifiable and legitimate cost
increases which would undermine producer viability.

The protocol will
further provide for collective bargaining to be "at the core" of wage
negotiations in both public and private sectors, led by national employment
councils, whilst the TNF will recommend wage levels for domestic and
unclassified workers, and wheresoever agreement within national employment
councils cannot be reached. Moreover, upon the conclusion of current wage
negotiations, there are to be no increases until April, other than by
agreement or responsive to job evaluations and productivity.

In terms of
the protocol, government undertakes to reduce its deficit to less than 5% of
gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of 2006, and to reduce the annual
rate of inflation to 80% by year-end.

It also undertakes to make tax
collection more efficient, broaden the tax base, and to use the tax
incentives to enhance disposable incomes. In addition, it promises to
expedite civil service reform, establish the National Incomes and Pricing
Commission and enhance the Competition and Tariffs Commission.

The
business sector undertakes to develop an acceptable price management
charter, ensure compliance with tax and foreign legislations, supply goods
and services at affordable prices, promote fair business and pricing
policies, competitiveness and exports, sustain agrarian reform, and adopt
retrenchment "as a last resort".

The labour movement's undertakings
in the protocol will include the promotion of industrial peace and harmony,
and productivity enhancement, to support agrarian reform, promote and
support worker empowerment, and to promote and advocate wages aligned to the
poverty datum line (PDL), and equitable wage distribution.

Upon the
announcement by TNF of the about-to-be concluded protocol, a spontaneous
reaction for many was relief that the negotiating parties were finally in
accord, instead of recurrently being at "loggerheads" with each other, and
at the same time a momentary surge of hope that at last there would be a
positive, unified endeavour to address Zimbabwe's cataclysmic economic
circumstances.

However, upon analysis, it appears that the protocol is
awash with tautology, but very little substance. Moreover, if it is to
endure only until the end of March, being less than a further 10 weeks away,
there can be no realistic expectation of any constructive movement towards
recovery.

As it took the TNF nearly four years to reach an agreement on
the protocol, how long will it take for agreement to be reached for a
renewal of the protocol, with or without modification - another four years,
perhaps?

One must inevitably also ponder whether the parties are entering
into the protocol in good faith? On the same day as the intended protocol
was announced, it was also announced that the electricity industry
regulator, the Zimbabwe Electricity Regulatory Authority (Zerc) had agreed,
in principle, to approve a request of the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply
Authority (Zesa) for a 237% tariff increase, subject to the concurrence of
the Ministry of Energy and Power Development.

Zerc is an arm of
government, so at the same time as government is becoming a party to an
agreement for a moratorium on increases in prices and incomes, it intends to
effect a great increase in electricity charges, impacting primarily upon the
major consumers who are to be bound by the price freeze.

Similarly, the
trade unions continue to demand that wages be increased to levels in excess
of the PDL, irrespective of the ability of employers to pay such wages, and
in total disregard for the fact that in most instances of families whose
incomes approximate the PDL, or are less than the PDL, there are at least
two income earners, albeit not to an equal extent.

The trade unions
would, therefore, have greater credibility if, upon concurring to the
protocol, their wage demands would be for wages of, say, 70% of PDL,
recognising that the other 30%, or more would be generated by the second
income-earners in the workers' families.

Regrettably, one can also not
give credence to an undertaking of the business sector to achieve compliance
with tax and foreign exchange legislation.

If the Zimbabwe Revenue
Authority (Zimra), with all the authority and powers vested in it, cannot
achieve tax compliance, how will the leaders of the business sector achieve
it?

Tax evasion exists throughout the world and, whilst it cannot be
condoned, the representative bodies of the business community cannot do what
is beyond the world's taxation authorities. The same is true of eliminating
the foreign currency "parallel" and "black" markets. They will endure for so
long as Zimbabwe has an insufficiency of foreign exchange.

It is also
intriguing that a "three-month" protocol has various target dates which are
almost a year hence! Zimbabwe desperately needs a social contract, but at
this stage one must doubt whether the TNF has come up with an effective one.
More likely, and very unfortunately, it will prove to be a damp
squib.

Charamba should put up or shut
up

The paper claimed the minister had "wielded the axe
and read the riot act to the management of municipalities that have failed
to deliver efficient services". He was also advised to ignore "blinkered"
detractors who accused him of carrying out a "purge" of MDC councillors.
Meanwhile, Harare, Mutare and Chitungwiza municipalities were singled out as
the "worst managed local authorities in the country".

In classic
contradiction, the editor doesn't say why Chombo has not axed the commission
he appointed to run Harare since the dismissal of Elias Mudzuri in May 2003.
Instead the commission has had its term extended while Chombo has
unilaterally declared there won't be council elections in Harare until
2008.

What improvements has Sekesai Makwavarara and her team brought
to Harare ratepayers? There is reason to get suspicious when editors
sacrifice ethics and go out of their way to flatter a minister who, for all
practical purposes, deserves nothing short of the sack himself. His latest
"sterling job" was presumably to bring cholera closer to the Harare Sheraton
to give tourists a taste of Zimbabwean hospitality!

The Sunday Mail
comment on the commission's performance was closer to the truth. "They are
doing no better than the councillors and mayors who have been dismissed in
Chitungwiza and elsewhere," said the Mail in its editorial on
Sunday.

Another group that needs to get a life is the delegation of
African-Americans currently visiting Zimbabwe. After paying "homage" to
resident minister David Karimanzira, this gang of tunnel-vision tourists
declared Zimbabwe to be a model for all of Africa to emulate.

The
leader of the gang, Clinton Crawford, said the visit was "an eye-opener"
because they were misinformed about the situation on the ground.

We
wonder how open his eyes were when he couldn't see the raw sewage flowing in
Chitungwiza or people displaced by Murambatsvina sleeping out in the rain
and living in plastic shacks.

Another member of the group, Eudora
Cox, claimed to have moved around the country for four days and "I have not
seen any fighting". So she came here expecting to see people carrying guns
in the city centre as they do in Liberia? Which media was she reading, that
is if she can read at all?

Due to circumstances beyond our control we are
unable to bring the column 'The Other Side' by Nathaniel Manheru," the
editor of the Herald announced last Saturday.

This struck us as
rather strange. If he meant Manheru was on leave, why didn't he say so?
"Circumstances beyond our control" suggests a technical breakdown. The last
time this occurred Manheru was spotted hosting a Press Freedom Day function
at the Sheraton the night before. Perhaps "indisposed" would have been a
better excuse on that occasion!

So what was Manheru up to last Saturday
which prevented the Herald from "bringing" his customary vitriolic
contribution to readers?

We don't know for sure. But the following day
the Sunday Mail published a lengthy attack on human rights lawyer Beatrice
Mtetwa by presidential spokesman George Charamba occupying the space where
the vacuous Lowani Ndlovu used to squat. He appeared bitterly resentful that
Mtetwa had won a number of international awards for her defence of
individuals finding themselves on the receiving end of state
depredations.

Charamba appeared to think that one of those organisations,
the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, was called the
"Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists", thus revealing, for one
attributing "loud and assertive ignorance" to others, an inexcusably faulty
grasp of his subject matter. Proceeding from this customary carelessness,
Charamba argued that Mtetwa's success in court did not necessarily imply
that Aippa was a bad law.

"She is probably grateful that the state
did not follow through," he claimed, going on to threaten that Mtetwa would
soon discover that "the state can and often does pursue cases doggedly right
to exhaustion"

If the truth be known, Mtetwa and other lawyers dealing
with Aippa cases would probably welcome the state pursuing cases "to
exhaustion" so the gaping flaws in that poorly framed legislation can be
further exposed to public ridicule.

With the exception of a minor
prosecution in the Midlands, the state has lost every single case it has
brought under Aippa. The Act - portrayed by Charamba as "a legitimate law"
just because Zanu PF passed it - has been a public relations disaster for
the regime which may explain Charamba's resentment.

Claims that the
government was about to repeal Aippa were "fatuous, unclear dreams", he
sternly declared.

Indeed, repeal may be wishful thinking. But a drastic
pruning is not entirely inconceivable, as government law officers assured
the African Commission for Human and Peoples' Rights in Banjul last month.
We certainly hope those assurances of a complete overhaul in the legislation
from the Attorney-General's Office were not designed to mislead the African
Union so that Zimbabwean officials at home can continue harassing
journalists.

Charamba proceeds from the controversial to the ridiculous.
He chose to quarrel with Mtetwa over the definition of licensing, claiming
"journalists can never be licensed under Aippa and she should know that.
Aippa lays firm ground for refusing to accredit a journalist and nowhere is
government's political predilection a basis for denying
accreditation".

What is accreditation if not a system of licensing
journalists? And of course it is abused for political purposes. Journalists
have been refused accreditation on the grounds that they have been convicted
in court of newspaper-related offences when those convictions have been
overturned on appeal.

The MIC comprises, among others, former state
newspaper editors who are appointed by the Minister of Information. Its
chairman writes unashamedly partisan - if incoherent - columns in the
government press which regularly attack the private media over which he
presides.

Charamba refers to Ijaz as set up "at the behest of hostile
foreign interests". But he doesn't mention his own ties to these same
"hostile" foreign interests.

"Many other dirty things happened,
things which are unprintable and touching the very pith of ethical conduct
in the legal profession," Charamba claims in relation to imaginary
Western-sponsored organisations

He should be told to pith off. There is
nothing worse than a coy government spokesman. Either that or he should have
the courage of his convictions and tell us what he is talking about. That
includes describing Trevor Ncube as a publisher "in partnership with
we-know-who".

Charamba is always suggesting he knows more than he does.
He should put up or shut up. Anyway, since when has Charamba recoiled from
the unprintable! The Foreign Correspondents Association may want to know, by
the way, that Sloppy George has renamed them the Foreign Correspondences
Association. Let's hope he never gets a job at a newspaper!

Aippa has
many parallels in many jurisdictions, chiefly those of the West, he claims.
This lie was successfully exploded when the Swedish government took a party
of journalists to Stockholm to see how their media laws work. State scribes
were prevented from going at the last minute in case they learnt the truth
about foolish claims that Aippa was similar to legislation elsewhere. It has
no parallels in democratic societies. And now the African Commission has
ruled that it is not simply a bad law but an unacceptable law in terms of
African governance.

The commission will be hearing related cases soon on
the grounds that the applicants cannot secure justice in their own courts.
This tends to bear out Mtetwa's claim that the Zimbabwean judiciary has been
"severely compromised", a point which Charamba appears to think they will
"respond" to.

It is one of Charamba's duties to defend the indefensible.
But personal attacks of this nature upon one of the country's most respected
lawyers, simply because she has embarrassed the regime by standing up to its
threats, is cowardly and distasteful. However, we have no doubt that Mtetwa,
who has been the subject of several state assaults and demonstrated more
courage than all the president's "men" put together, is capable of standing
up for herself.

Perhaps this Sunday Charamba, instead of bashing
women lawyers, will explain his role in the Tsholotsho Declaration which he
appears understandably keen to avoid!

Muckraker was intrigued with
remarks by Justice Maphios Cheda at the opening of the legal year in
Bulawayo last week. He criticised legal firms that had ignored human rights
during the liberation war but were now "in the forefront in singing very
loudly about human rights violations".

It is difficult to establish the
logic here.

Does this mean that a law firm or legal practitioner would
have to demonstrate a record of human rights work in the 1960s and 70s
before being entitled to take such cases now? Supposing the firm has taken
on new partners or changed hands, as so many have, or been set up since
1980? How do we assess its suitability?

And what about those lawyers
who were youngsters or not yet born in the 1970s? Are they unable to work
now on human rights cases because they don't have a war record?

And
what about other newcomers to the legal scene that support the present
regime despite its record of human rights violations? Where do we place them
and how will they be regarded 25 years hence?

Justice Cheda singled
out Chief Justice Chidyausiku, among others, for his role in fighting for
human rights during the liberation war.

We would be keen to have the
details. We recall that he was a member of the Rhodesian parliament
occupying one of 15 seats set aside for blacks. We also recall an incident
involving his appearance before the House in a colourful outfit, described
by the media at the time as a "zoot-suit". If there is more we would like to
hear it.

We note that in addition to Chidyausiku, Justice Cheda praised
the role of "unsung heroes" such as former Chief Justice Fieldsend, former
Justices Fergus Blackie, Kennedy Sibanda and Washington Sansole, and
Bulawayo-based legal practitioners Ben Baron, Lot Senda, Charles Lazarus, E
Greenfield, and Brice Longhurst.

To that list we would add late Chief
Justice Enoch Dumbutshena who provided this nation with a fine example of
judicial integrity, unafraid of state blandishments; and Anthony Eastwood
who defended many prominent nationalists in the Salisbury courts.

A
footnote: When Chief Justice Fieldsend was told his contract was up in the
early 1980s (in fact he didn't have one), prime minister Robert Mugabe told
ZTV: "We want a black for that job."

He got his wish. A West Indian
judge on the Zimbabwean bench, Justice Telford Georges, was duly appointed.
But a few months later he disclosed he had been offered a more attractive
post as Chief Justice of a Caribbean state. As a result Justice Dumbutshena
was elevated to the job and he became the country's first black
Zimbabwean

Chief Justice, as distinct from first black Chief Justice as
some newspapers reported at the time of his death.

The government's
war against Tony Blair assumed new dimensions recently when the name of the
Blair Research Laboratory was changed to the National Institute of Research,
Health and Child Welfare. The lab was named after one of the country's
leading scientists who through no choice of his own shared his name with the
British PM. What next? Perhaps they will rename Blair toilets "Tambaogas" or
"Lasts" as in "Relief at Last".

Muckraker was highly entertained
by the Herald's chess column recently. Its author, "The Sacker", reported "a
brilliant week of play" at the Harare Prison Complex. The "Best Inmate"
prize went to Nextman Fuzane who scored seven points. He played "very
aggressive chess", we are told, "and gave many top players a real
scare".

Tsvangirai a merchant of confusion

Zim Independent

ON
October 13, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai issued a statement to justify his
decision to boycott the senatorial election that was due in November. The
announcement by Tsvangirai triggered serious ructions in the MDC, creating
fractures that have virtually crippled opposition politics in
Zimbabwe.

The crux of the matter has been the correctness of
participating in the poll. Tsvangirai in the statement set out what at the
time appeared like a bold defence of his opposition to participation in an
election whose results he said were predetermined by a system honed to
subvert the popular will.

He proffered this argument: "The
electoral management system in Zimbabwe is still a recipe for political
disasters. The system breeds illegitimate outcomes and provides for a
predetermined result."

The statement elicited sympathy from many
Zimbabweans who have since 2000 seen a systematic erosion of the democratic
process by Zanu PF. Allegations of violence, intimidation, ballot-stuffing,
gerrymandering and appointment of suborned electoral officers have fortified
the resolve of those who believe in boycott as a means of political
expression.

The courts have also moved at a glacial pace in dealing
with electoral cases that were filed by the opposition to contest Zanu PF
victories in the 2000 general election. Tsvangirai is still seeking relief
in the courts for what he believes was a stolen presidential election in
2002.

We have previously questioned the wisdom of the boycott
tactic. Not only that, we have also doubted whether Tsvangirai's resolve
will hold.

Our worst fears of a vacillating leader were confirmed
last week when his faction participated in local government elections,
fielding candidates parallel to the Gibson Sibanda camp.

The
two MDC factions fielded candidates in Chitungwiza ward 20 and in St Mary's
where they lost to Zanu PF in a poorly-contested poll.

Tsvangirai's
camp also lost in Kariba ward 6 but won in Zvishavane ward 9.

But what did the poll serve to portray about the opposition other than
public disgust at its fractiousness and the loss of confidence in the
electoral process by urban dwellers?

It only gets worse when
so-called leaders confuse the electorate. Those who heeded the call not to
participate in the senate polls were last weekend being asked to vote in
ward polls. We did not hear the explanation for this volte-face by
Tsvangirai.

Politicians taking strong positions on issues expose
themselves to criticism if they are not consistent. Tsvangirai, by allowing
members of his faction to participate in the council polls, simply drove a
coach and horses through his rallying point against the senatorial election
- that is that the results are predetermined. The council polls are still
run by the same Zimbabwe Electoral Commission whose competence and
impartiality the MDC has questioned.

Participating in the polls
and losing to Zanu PF gives the ruling party an opportunity to brag about
its democratic credentials and its legitimacy. Most importantly, how would
winning council polls further the fight for democracy and change? In short,
nothing has changed since October for Tsvangirai to participate in the
poll.

What made Tsvangirai's decision more puzzling is the fact
that the elections came on the back of a sustained onslaught by Local
Government minister Ignatious Chombo against local authorities by suspending
elected opposition mayors and councillors and appointing Zanu PF
commissioners to run councils. Elected councillors in urban areas stay in
office at the will of Chombo. They can be dismissed any time. In all this,
the opposition has been deafeningly silent.

If Tsvangirai is a
disciple of the politics of boycott, this was an opportunity for him to send
a message to Chombo that he abhors his intrusion in local
governance.

The lack of consistency exposes the leadership
weaknesses of Tsvangirai which must be mended if he is to retain his 2002
standing as a national leader. Time is running out for him to do that and
his flip-flop is a slap in the face for the millions that voted for the
opposition in 2000 and for him in 2002.

We want to hear from
Tsvangirai if his boycott stance has exceptions as was demonstrated last
week with local government polls. If the plan was to prove to his rivals
that he still commands massive support, the experiment was a self-evident
disaster and hugely damaging. Zanu PF likes nothing better than to claim
electoral support where it obviously has none.

What would
Tsvangirai do, if for some strange reason President Mugabe were to call for
an early presidential poll? Does he know? What will he do in 2008 or
2010?

Meanwhile, the MDC leader's entirely justified criticism of
Zanu PF's manipulation of the Sadc protocol on elections has been lost in
the confusion he has sown in the process of self-destruction.